by Susan Stoker
“What did you find?”
She made her way back to him and showed him. “It’s Lady’s tag.”
He cupped her chin with his hand. “You really loved her, didn’t you?”
She nodded, not willing to give in to the tears. They weren’t just for Lady. Her whole life had been turned upside down because of one unbalanced person.
Hunter brushed away a tear that fell down her cheek.
“Crap, I hate crying. Makes my eyes look like hell later.”
He chuckled and wrapped his good arm around her waist. “I spoke to my sister today.”
“You did?” He only spoke to his family once a month. “Did you tell them where you’re living?”
He shook his head. “No, not yet. They mean well, but I’m not ready for that. But I plan to talk to them once a week until I am.”
“Did you tell your sister about your injury and how you were a hero and saved me?” She loved teasing him about that because the man was so humble.
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t. I didn’t want her worrying about me any more than she already does. But I did tell her about you.”
“You did?” This couldn’t be good.
He nodded, a secret smile on his face that had her suspicious. “I told her what a great person you were and that your dog died.”
She frowned. “That was years ago.” She looked at the tag in her hand and slipped it into the back pocket of her shorts.
Hunter grinned. “I know, but she didn’t need to know that. I only mentioned it because she told me her dog just had a litter of puppies.”
“Puppies?” Her heart constricted as she imagined little Lady when she was just a baby.
“But my sister’s dog is a full-blooded Labrador and they think the father is a golden retriever so the puppies will grow into big dogs. Still, I asked her if you could have one.”
Freakin-a! A puppy! She wanted to jump up and down, but then she cringed. “Did she say I could?”
“Of course she said yes.” He shook his head. “The minute I told her my girlfriend might be interested, she was more than happy to part with one.”
Girlfriend? Holy crap, she was a girlfriend now. Her life was changing faster than a rattlesnake could strike.
Hunter raised his brows. “So? Do you want one?”
“Duh. I’d love one.” She wrapped her arm around his neck and gave him a thank-you kiss. She’d begun to understand there were all kinds of kisses to be given and received.
When she let him go, he took her hand and led her from the scene. They were halfway across the bridge over the creek when he stopped. “I have a proposition for you.”
“I like propositions.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“Good.” He leaned back against the bridge railing and pulled her toward him. “Since most of your belongings are toast—”
“Really?” She raised her brows that he could use such a pun.
He chuckled, a sound she was growing incredibly fond of. “Sorry. Let me rephrase. Since your belongings are gone and what you have left is already packed up, how about you move into my casita with me.”
She froze. Live with a man. She’d never done that before. “I don’t know how.”
He laughed. “All the better.”
“I can cook, but that’s about it. I’m not neat and I leave clothes and sex toys and dirty plates all over the place.”
He squeezed her waist where his hand rested. “And I probably have a dozen habits that will drive you crazy, but I think it would be fun to try. I will get to see your smile in the evening and hear your laugh. I love your laugh and your honesty and backbone, too. The fact is, I love you and I want to go through day-to-day life with you.”
Her heart leapt at his words.
He smirked. “Besides, we will really get to know each other—in more than the Biblical sense.”
Thrilled yet afraid, she looked down at his right arm holding her close. She may be scared, but her heart wanted this. To know everything she could about him and make sure he knew all there was to know about her. She wouldn’t pretend to be something she wasn’t.
Her gaze fell on the tattoo on his arm. “Julie.” She rubbed her finger over it. “You know I can’t be like your late wife.” She looked up into his eyes. What would he think? “Not only do I know nothing about ranching, but I’m pretty sure I’m nothing like her.”
Deep sadness filled his gaze before he slowly shook his head. “I wouldn’t want you to be. I can’t be the husband I used to be. I’m different. I’ve changed.”
She understood what he meant. She had changed too. She’d let people into her heart though she’d refused to accept that and she had a home with friends and a man who loved her. She was a different person now. Not better, just different.
She nodded. “I’d like to try that.”
His smile was wide and filled with happiness.
Her heart soared with the knowledge that she’d caused it. She wrapped her arms around him. “Let’s go.”
He winked. “Your place or mine?”
She laughed. “Ours.”
The End
Read on for an excerpt from Trace’s Trouble (Last Chance #2)
Chapter One
“Stop right there unless you’d like your head blown off.”
At the husky voice, Trace froze, bringing Lightyear to a halt as his gaze swung to the barrel of a rifle barely visible behind the single boulder amidst the Joshua trees and sagebrush. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone out here except a woman with a trailer, and so far he’d seen neither. Drug dealers? Coyotes? His right hand itched to grasp his rifle from its scabbard attached to Lightyear’s saddle.
He studied the area past the rock. Were there more? There was no other place to hide so completely. He didn’t see anyone else. One delinquent he could handle. “Just out for a ride.” He smiled crookedly. “Enjoying the day.”
“Then turn around and enjoy the day somewhere else.” The voice came again, but the rifle barrel remained steady. Whoever held that gun was in his element.
Shit. First he’s tasked with doing Cole’s dirty work, and then he has to come across some territorial drifter. He frowned at his remembered conversation with Cole.
“You want me to do what?” He tipped his cowboy hat up to stare at his cousin as if he’d just sprouted six legs and a long, poisonous tail.
Cole had the decency to look uncomfortable and lowered his leg from the rail of the training corral. “I don’t have a choice. If she’s been up there too long she could claim the land as hers under Arizona squatter laws. This Whisper woman needs to move her trailer off our land. You know the boundaries. She probably won’t have to move very far. She’s up over the rim of the north canyon.”
Trace had little sympathy for the opposite sex at the moment, including his soon-to-be ex-wife, but he couldn’t see kicking the woman off their land when she’d just saved Lacey’s life. Didn’t really speak of gratefulness to him. “Does Lacey agree with you?”
Cole started to turn. “It doesn’t matter. It’s what needs to be done.”
Trace stepped in front of his cousin, not the least bit intimidated by Cole’s scowl. “You can at least wait until after New Year’s. Shit, with this kind of ‘thank you,’ you’ll be lucky if the woman doesn’t seek us out and kill us all in our beds.”
“Just do it.” His cousin stepped around him and strode toward the house.
There was no way this scenario was going to go well for Cole and possibly for the rest of them. To hear Lacey talk about Whisper, the woman walked on water, able to shoot a flower bud on a saguaro cactus from a half mile away.
Trace pulled off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his bandana then stuffed it back in his pocket and lowered his Stetson. He liked Lacey. She seemed to be a decent woman, one of the few left. She was going to be fit to be tied.
He grinned. Now that was something he’d like to see. It would serve Cole right for being so ungrateful and sending h
im to do the dirty work. Trace turned back toward the corral to find Lightyear, the mahogany-colored bay with black points that he liked to ride, standing near him. Ignoring the horse’s face, he patted its withers. “I guess you and I are going to cause some trouble, boy.”
The horse shook its head to dislodge a fly, but Trace chuckled. “No, not for us, but for your righteous owner.” He entered the corral and carefully bridled Lightyear with a unique technique he’d developed. The horse was far too sensitive around his face, thanks to an encounter with a traveling swarm of bees.
Lightyear’s face had swelled so much he could barely breathe. His owner had left him for dead, but a caring neighbor had called animal welfare. Cole and his vet had nursed the poor horse back to health over a year ago, but it still couldn’t stand having its face touched.
Once Trace had the bridle in place, he added the saddle blanket, saddle and cinched the strap. Patting the horse on his side one more time, he mounted.
“Let’s get this over with, buddy.” Trace kicked Lightyear into a trot and they headed out to the canyon. His cousin had a big heart for horses, but when it came to people who didn’t toe the line, he had no give at all.
Too bad Trace hadn’t had the same strict rules for right and wrong as Cole had. Instead, he’d been blinded by a love that wasn’t reciprocated and would soon lose everything he’d worked so hard for. He should have known. He would never get involved with a down-on-her-luck woman again.
In the meantime, he had a roof over his head and a job he enjoyed. Most of the time.
Now wasn’t one of those times.
“Today would be nice. I got better things to do than shoot and bury trespassers. Turn your fancy ass around and get out of here.” Though the voice definitely sounded irritated now, he smiled inside at the man’s confidence.
Careful to keep his hands still, Trace cocked his head. “Then we have a problem. You see, this is my cousin’s land and I’m not the one trespassing.”
After a minute or two of no response, but with the rifle barrel still steady, Trace slowly moved his right hand down by his leg. The problem was, even if he did get to the rifle, he was a sitting duck up on Lightyear.
“Who’s this supposed cousin?”
At the question, he stilled. Maybe he wasn’t talking to a criminal. This could well be the husband of Lacey’s Whisper. Preferring to settle the issue peaceably with no one getting hurt, most especially himself, he leaned forward in the saddle, hiding his right hand completely from view. “Cole Hatcher. His fiancée Lacey was up here recently.”
“No, she wasn’t.”
Ah, the man knew who Lacey was. Trace listened intently as a muted swearing and grumbling came from behind the rock. He couldn’t quite make out any particular words except “hell.”
Grasping the rifle in his hand, he gave Lightyear a tap with his right foot. The horse started to move forward.
“I said turn around!”
Trace moved his left hand toward Lightyear’s face. “Whoa, it’s okay, buddy.” He scratched beneath the horse’s ear and Lightyear reared. Gripping the horse with his knees, he swung the rifle around and shot the rock where the barrel was visible.
“Dammit.” The barrel moved then. “Freaking-a, what the hell are you doing? I could have shot you.”
He still felt like a sitting duck, but since the man hadn’t shot him yet, it meant he wasn’t trigger-happy. “Show yourself.”
A laugh sounded from behind the boulder. A very husky, feminine laugh and Trace’s pulse accelerated.
“Now why would I do that?”
The voice was no different, but as Trace imagined a woman instead of a man, it no longer felt threatening. Instead, it had his imagination running wild without any clothes. Intrigued, his curiosity got the best of him. “Are you Whisper?”
The silence was deafening and he brought the rifle up again. He may have imagined that feminine tone. He hadn’t been with a woman since he was served the papers for the divorce. He should probably find himself a one-night stand soon or he’d be thinking the fence post was a woman.
“Who wants to know?”
“I’m Trace, Cole’s cousin. He sent me up here to talk to you.”
Again silence. There was no way the rifle-bearer was a woman. Women weren’t that patient, or that quiet, at least not in his experience.
A figure unfolded itself from behind the rock and Trace’s breath stuck in his lungs. Startling silver eyes peered at him from beneath a worn, brown-leather cowboy hat. Beneath those eyes was a straight, elegant nose, high cheekbones and full lips that remained closed. A stubborn jaw anchored the lower face while small wisps of black hair framed the sides, the rest tied back somehow.
“So talk.”
Trace blinked, letting the rifle go slack. As he took in the rest of the image, his interest cooled. The woman wore a loose red-and-black flannel shirt, a brown leather vest, a handgun stuffed into the waist of her baggy jeans and square-toed cowboy boots that had seen better days. Alarm bells went off in his head. A down-on-her-luck woman. Shit. “Are you Whisper?”
Her nod was barely discernable.
“Hello, miss. I understand you have a trailer up here.”
Again, a slight nod.
He wasn’t used to silent women. His wife talked nonstop, mostly about what she needed. Lacey, who he actually thought was a decent woman, also needed to fill in the silence as well, but at least with important stuff.
His task was important, at least to Cole. “Can I see it?”
“Why?”
So I can tell you it’s on Hatcher-Williams land and you need to move it. He glanced down at the rifle held loosely in her hand. Lacey’s comments on what a great shot Whisper was had him rethinking his plan. Maybe the straightforward approach wasn’t the best. “Lacey said you lived up here with someone.”
“Yeah, my uncle.” She still didn’t move, but her gaze flicked between him and Lightyear.
Interesting. “Can I talk to him?” Maybe a man-to-man conversation would be easier.
Her lips quirked up on one side just slightly, just enough to rivet his gaze. “Sure. This way.”
Trace took a moment to get Lightyear moving, his mind still stuck on the image of her full, feminine lips, but once he set the horse to a walk in between the Joshua trees, it became apparent that riding wasn’t the easiest way to move forward.
Quickly, he jumped down and carefully pulled the reins over Lightyear’s head so they wouldn’t brush along the horse’s face. He grasped them low and guided the horse between trees, keeping the blue jeans and brown vest in sight.
Whisper’s long, straight black ponytail swished back-and-forth with her stride, catching his attention and holding it to the point he almost walked into a prickly pear cactus. Shit, as if the Joshua trees didn’t make this area of the high desert a challenge enough to navigate. No wonder he and his cousin had rarely ventured up here as kids. How the hell did they get a trailer in here?
Finally, they emerged into what looked like a natural clearing of hard-packed earth and there sat a large trailer covered in the dust of the environment. In front of it sat a single Adirondack chair and a chiminea. With a quick scan, he could see a shed to the left and slightly behind it, a cord running to the trailer. A generator? To the right of the home sat an ATV under the shade of a wooden carport-type structure.
“He’s in there.” Whisper grabbed his attention once again and he raised an eyebrow.
“You’re not coming in?”
“It’s too close in there with more than two people.” She waved her hand toward the trailer even as she sat in the chair, the rifle on her lap. “Go ahead. You can introduce yourself.”
Trace released Lightyear’s reins. “Stay there, buddy. I’ll be right back.” Anxious to talk to a man instead of Lacey’s odd friend, Trace strode quickly to the trailer and knocked.
“Oh, go ahead in. Uncle Joey won’t bite.”
Then why did he suddenly have the feeling she wasn’t g
iving him the whole story.
Trace’s Trouble (Last Chance Series: Book 2)
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